The fans ask, and Blizzard has answered – the Winds of Wisdom double-experience buff active on World of Warcraft has been extended until the Shadowlands Pre-Patch!
To help with social distancing, the World of Warcraft developers over at Blizzard implemented a new buff called Winds of Wisdom. This buff made it so that all characters were given a permanent buff that doubled all experience gains. That included any quests, any gathering, anything that gave experience was doubled. On top of that, it stacked with other sources of XP gain, like Heirlooms, which made it so that players were able to stack a huge amount of XP buffs. If you had a rested buff at the same time, you were really off to the races.
This has drastically increased how fast players can level new characters, as one would expect. More than anything, though, it makes the trip through now-obsolete content that some players have played to absolute death a bit more bearable. Rather than having to run Blood Furnace for the twentieth time, players can get through sections of the game fast enough that it’s just a bit of a groan having to see it again instead of the trudging through mud it feels like without the buff.
Yes! We’re extending the Winds of Wisdom 100% experience buff through to the release of the #Shadowlands pre-patch.https://t.co/dYwVDOlROG pic.twitter.com/LA7gNDfJ5I
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) April 17, 2020
Naturally, it’s been a pretty popular buff. It only affects those on the modern Battle for Azeroth client and not those on Classic, which makes sense given the way that Classic is supposed to be independent of all such things. Unfortunately, it was also limited – and set to end this weekend. No one was too happy to see it leave, and since it was implemented to help with social distancing (which doesn’t seem like it’ll be ending soon), fans were practically begging Blizzard to extend the buff.
And they listened! Blizzard have extended the buff all the way up until the release of the pre-Shadowlands patch, which is quite some time away. So far away, in fact, that we don’t currently have a date for the release! The expansion is still set for a December 31st, 2020 release – the placeholder to say it’s coming at some point this year – but even that seems uncertain, and without an exact release date known, there’s no way of knowing when they’ll release the pre-patch.
It’s a wonderful and simple act from Blizzard that really lets the fans know that they’re being heard. Fans have already taken to social media to lower their pitchforks and thank Blizzard for listening to their fanbase and acting on the demands.
